Staff Assembly Minutes

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Echo Bay/Blue Creek Bay Room, SUB

Approval of Minutes: A motion was made to approve the minutes from the August 9, 2012 meeting; motion passed.

New Business:

New Employee Introductions

Matt Sebby introduced Kym Browning, who has joined Auxiliary Services as a part-time administrative assistant; Kim will be helping with campus events.

Erin Norvell introduced Laura Hill, NIC’s new HR Director.

Bob Murray introduced Jon Downing, the new chemistry lab technician.

Wellness Program Update (Andrea Woempner)Wellness Your Way for 2013 is rolling. Last year NIC had 518 participants in the wellness program, with 72% of benefit eligible employees participating, and $280425 deposited in employee HRA accounts.

Step 1. Choose Your DeductibleYou already did this step during open enrollment. Lower deductibles were earned by employees who completed a tobacco affidavit through our online benefit enrollment system and an online general health assessment through MyRegence.com. Once open enrollment closed, so did your window of opportunity for a lower deductible.

Campus Emergency Messaging/Updating My NIC Contact Information (Chantel Black)Our new campus emergency messaging system is “Cardinal Contact”. To receive emergency text messages, your cell phone must be tagged as “cell”, not listed as your home phone. To edit your information for Cardinal Contact, login to My NIC, then click on Services Tab, User Account, and Contact Information. Click in the appropriate field for “cell phone” to update your cell number and receive emergency text messages.

You should receive an initial confirmation email within 24 hours. The next text “test” for emergency messaging is in October.

Committee Update (Nancy Edwards)All open positions on committees have been filled. Thank you to everyone who volunteered—we had more volunteers than openings. If you have any questions regarding the committee assignments, please feel free to contact Nancy Edwards.

Professional Development Fund Update (Erin Norvell)In support of our new Mission, Vision and Values statement which promotes professional development, the Professional Development Fund was approved for FY13. The Professional Development Fund is in addition to our long-standing PIP funds.

Eligibility: Employees in benefit-eligible positions who have been employed continuously for one year or more are able to apply for PD funds.

Approval: An approval committee that includes the four vice presidents reviews the applications and prioritizes fund distribution according to applicability to NIC’s mission/goals and the overall good of the college. Requests that demonstrate the relevance of your activity to the strategic plan and your current position are given priority.

Eligible Activities: Activities can include courses, certifications and exams, conferences and seminars including travel, tuition and fees assistance (up to 6 credits per semester) and learning materials. The reimbursement rate for tuition is based on the actual cost or 50% of the University of Idaho’s rate, whichever is lower.

This is a competitive process, and Erin urges people to clearly state their professional goals on their application, as well as how your activities will help you achieve those goals.

(From the HR home page, click Employee Benefits-Organizational Learning-Employee Professional Development Training).

Diamond Parking on Campus (Garry Stark)Diamond Parking has been contracted to issue parking citations on campus this semester. We are working to fine tune this transition, and we put a high priority on our campus visitors having a good experience while on campus. We do have the same appeal process for tickets, with a campus committee reviewing the appeals.

Campus Recycling Program (Bill McElver)NIC is taking part in a new single-stream recycling program. Based on a pilot study at Ramsey School, we predict that NIC can reduce refuse costs by 50% or more. With single stream recycling, you can mix paper, aluminum, cardboard and plastic in one bin without separating them. No glass will be accepted. For this program to work, everyone needs to do their part:

1) Staff on campus who choose to recycle (and we hope they will), will have a desk side box for recycling.

2) When the desk side boxes are full, the staff will empty the boxes in central carts located in each building.

3) NIC’s custodial staff will then empty the carts into the recycling containers outside, and Waste Management will pick them up twice weekly.

We realize that this program will require a new train of thought—staff and students will have to actively decide to do their part in recycling. We hope you will see it as a win-win situation; by working together on a recycling program, NIC could potentially reduce our use of the landfill by 50% or more, leaving a much smaller footprint on the environment. And at the same time, NIC can reduce its costs for landfill use.

Shout-Outs:

To Randy Reader and Heather Brownsberger from Rhonda Smalley—for their teamwork in picking up the extra workload while Rhonda was training on the large format printer. Thanks so much Amigos!

To Allison Hall, CJ Banks, and Amy Mayer for always being so helpful from Teresa Henderson. I really appreciate all that you do!

To Evie Scrabeck and Vicki Shanley from Carol Jones for making Lee Hall sparkle and taking such good care of us! Many thanks!